G4S slammed for human rights abuses in Palestine

3 June 2015 - 3:45pm

Press release

For Immediate release

War on Want is protesting tomorrow at the G4S AGM [1] against G4S's continued complicity in human rights violations across the world.

In 2007, G4S - the largest security company in the world - signed a contract with the Israeli Prison Service to provide security systems and services to all of the major Israeli prisons and detention centres. [2]

Randa Wahbe, Advocacy Officer at Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a War on Want partner in occupied Palestine said,

"G4S continues to be complicit in the illegal detention of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners, including children, women, Palestinian Legislative Council members and university students.
We will continue our campaign against G4S until it ends all of its contracts that support military occupation and all oppression across the world."

Ryvka Barnard, Global Justice Campaigner at War on Want said,

"It is a scandal that G4S has a contract with the Israeli Prison Service to help run prisons at which Palestinian political prisoners, including children as young as 14, are often held without trial and subjected to torture."

"G4S is complicit in Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and its abhorrent prison system. This must end now."

From the UK deportation system to Israel's detention of Palestinian political prisoners, security firm G4S continues to profit from human rights abuses around the world. Only last year, in response to mounting international criticism, and pressure from groups including War on Want, G4S stated that contracts in the West Bank and with the Israeli Prison Service would not be renewed.
Ryvka continued,

"Sadly, we've yet to see any evidence of these promises being kept and G4S continue to put their profits before the rights of Palestinians.

"Now is the time for G4S to walk the walk, uphold its legal and ethical responsibilities and end its connection with Israel's abhorrent prison system."

The detention of Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories in Israeli prisons contravenes the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting the relocation of prisoners from occupied territory to the occupying country.

Universities, charities, and trade unions across the world have cancelled contracts worth millions of pounds with G4S over its role in human rights abuses in Palestine. Last year War on Want, along with others, campaigned successfully for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to divest from G4S.

G4S securing profits, globalising injustice

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